that he never claims the promise.'

'I fear that I have the English idea of marriage, that it should go by
love and not by convenience. But in any case your scheme is out of the
question, for my own affections are pledged to a young lady in England.'

He looked wickedly at me out of the corners of his grey eyes.

'Think well what you are doing, Louis,' said he, in a sibilant whisper
which was as menacing as a serpent's hiss. 'You are deranging my plans,
and that is not done with impunity.'

'It is not a matter in which I have any choice.'

He gripped me by the sleeve, and waved his hand round as Satan may have
done when he showed the kingdoms and principalities. 'Look at the
park,' he cried, 'the fields, the woods. Look at the old castle in
which your fathers have lived for eight hundred years. You have but to
say the word and it is all yours once more.'

There flashed up into my memory the little red-brick house at Ashford,
and Eugenie's sweet pale face looking over the laurel bushes which grew
by the window.

'It is impossible!' said I.

There must have been something in my manner which made him comprehend
that it really was so, for his face darkened with anger, and his
persuasion changed in an instant to menace.